The present invention relates to light emitting diode technology, and more particularly to LED lighting assemblies used in swimming pools.
Currently, water within a swimming pool is illuminated by an incandescent light that is housed within a watertight fixture that is situated within a cavity in one end of a pool wall, or a niche in a wall of the pool, below a waterline. The cavity, or niche, is required in the wall of the pool because the incandescent light has a longitudinal length wherein the niche is needed to place the bulb so that it does not extend into the pool. The watertight fixture has an outer lens that may protrude slightly into the pool. When a new bulb is needed, the whole fixture is removed from the cavity, wherein a power cable supplying electricity to the light is long enough for the fixture to be safely positioned out of the pool water.
Typically, a clear incandescent light bulb is placed in the fixture. If a colored effect is desired, such as blue, red, or green, then a different color bulb is placed in the fixture. In another embodiment, the outer lens is replaced with a colored lens, or a colored lens cover fits over the clear lens. However, in each of these situations, an individual has to manually make a modification to the pool light to produce a desired color. If the individual wanted to continuously vary the colors where the intensity of the light is not lessened, such an option is not available.
Standard electrical wiring connects the watertight fixture to a 110-voltage source. Nonetheless, providing a 110-volt electricity source to such fixtures presents an element of risk that many would prefer to avoid. Also, such incandescent lamp fixtures frequently expose the imperfections in the interior surface of the swimming pool as a consequence of the lamps diffusion of light and the intensity of the light source.
It is known in the prior art to provide LED lighting assemblies for swimming pools but such systems are frequently designed specifically for aboveground pools and hot tubs. There are also known LED lighting assemblies for in-ground pools that house LED arrays that rotate to achieve variations of the emitted color patterns. Typically, such assemblies will employ a combination of red, green and blue LED arrays, which permits the generation of up to 256,000 colors, as is also well known in the art. For example, it is believed that U.S. Pat. No. 6,184,628 (“the '628 patent”) teaches the use of predetermined arrays of a plurality of different colored LED bulbs to replace an incandescent pool light where the plurality of different colored LED bulbs are wired in such a manner that the predetermined arrays of plurality of different colored LED bulbs activate at predetermined sequences for predetermined time intervals wherein the bulbs are encased in a lens. Even though LED bulbs are used, providing LED lighting fixtures with brightness to rival incandescent bulbs is still an issue, especially when not all of the LED bulbs are illuminated, as suggested in the '628 patent.